How to Change

an Organization

BA S ED ON

THE CATALYST
B Y JONA H BERGER
What’s Inside

1 W ha t Do Yo u Wa nt t o C h a ng e ?
Defining the Change
Finding the Parking Brakes

2 The RE D U CE F r ame wor k

R eactance
E ndowment
D istance
U ncertainty
C orroborating
E vidence

3 C a ta l yz i n g t he C h ang e
Re-evaluating theRoadblocks
Reevaluating the Roadblocks
Implementing Your Ideas
 1 What Do You Want to Change?
Everyone has something they want to change. You might be trying to change the boss’s mind about a new
initiative, get employees to think more creatively, or change organizational culture.

But changing organizations is hard. We have meeting after meeting outlining the new strategy, send out
email after email urging people to do things differently, even set incentives to encourage people to switch.
And still they don’t budge. Could there be a better way?

To catalyze change, we need to REDUCE roadblocks. This application guide will help. If you’re working
with a team, feel free to bring in others for this exercise. Talking through the various questions will help
clarify your objectives and achieve more effective results.

The first section, What Do You Want To Change, will help you think through what exactly you’re trying
to change and which roadblocks might be most important. If you think you have that down already, feel
free to skip ahead to the second section, the REDUCE framework, where you’ll start applying the ideas.

Defining the Change

Let’s start with the basics: What are you trying to change, what’s happening currently (i.e., the status quo),
and what are you hoping will happen moving forward?

What have you tried already? How have you tried to change things and what was the result?

1: What Do You Want to Change?: Defining the Change 1

Finding the Parking Brakes

Now, let’s take a different perspective. Rather than thinking about what you could do to try to create change,
why haven’t things changed already? What’s stopping people? What are the parking brakes (p. 10)?

Think about each of the five roadblocks catalysts REDUCE and score how important they are in your
situation on a 1 through 5 scale. 5 means extremely important, 1 means not so much.

Roadblock Score (1-5)

Reactance

Endowment

Distance

Uncertainty

Corroborating
Evidence

Given these scores, which roadblocks do you want to REDUCE to start? You should still work through each
barrier in the next section, but deciding what to focus on now will help you dig deeper in the right places.

If there are additional roadblocks, or restraining forces that are getting in the way, list them now.

1: What Do You Want to Change?: Finding the Parking Brakes 2

2 The REDUCE Framework
Over the next few pages, we’ll examine how to change organizations (or the boss’s mind) by working to
REDUCE each of the five key barriers or roadblocks. Then we’ll step back and think about the best next
steps to drive success over both the short and long term.

R e actance
When pushed, people push back. So rather than telling people what to do, or trying to persuade, catalysts allow
for agency and encourage people to convince themselves. How can we allow for agency (Truth campaign), provide
a menu (Nafeez Amin), or highlight a gap (Smoking Kid)?

E nd owment
People are wedded to what they’re already doing. The status quo. To ease endowment, we need to surface the
costs of inaction (Gloria Barrett), burn the ships (Cortes), and frame new things as regaining a loss (Brexit).

D i stance
Perspectives that are too far away fall in the region of rejection and get discounted. So start by asking for less
(Silvia Branscom). Find an unsticking point and use it to switch the field (Deep Canvassing).

U ncertainty
Change almost always involves uncertainty, and this ambiguity makes people hit the pause button, stemming
action. To get people to un-pause, increase trialability. Harness freemium (Dropbox), reduce upfront costs
(Zappos), and drive discovery (Acura Experience).

C orrobrating E v i d ence

Sometimes one person, isn’t enough.  Some things need more proof. So find reinforcement. Use multiple sources
(Mike Loverde), concentrate them close in time, and figure out whether you need a firehose or a sprinkler.

Ordering these five parking brakes, or roadblocks, to spell REDUCE makes them easier to remember, but
in thinking about how to mitigate them, a different order may actually be more useful. To get people to
change, it helps to start with what they’re doing already, so we’ll start with how to ease Endowment.

2: The REDUCE Framework 3

Ease Endowment

What features make the status quo particularly attractive (e.g., people think it saves money)?

Spell out the switching costs (p. 69-80). Not just the financial cost of doing something new, but any time, effort, or psychological
costs as well. What people have to figure out, learn, or do to switch from the status quo to the new way of doing things.

How can you reduce these costs or mitigate these pain points? If a key switching cost is learning a new process, for example,
how can you make that easier?

Are there any hidden costs of sticking with the status quo that people might not realize? Like financial advisor Gloria Barrett
(p. 74-83), how can you surface these costs of inaction?

How can you do some version of burning the ships (p. 78-82)? Can you use Sam Michaels’s approach (p. 80-82) and make
people bear more of the costs of the status quo?

2: The REDUCE Framework: Ease Endowment 4

Ease Endowment (cont.)

Like Dominic Cummings and Brexit (p. 84-87), can you frame new approaches as regaining a loss?

Given your analysis above, list two ways you could catalyze change by easing endowment.

1.

2.

2: The REDUCE Framework: Ease Endowment 5

Alleviate Uncertainty

What are the key things people are uncertain about (see the Force Field Analysis Appendix)? They might be
uncertain about whether the new approach will be better, that it won’t hurt their compensation, etc.

Freemium may be a bit hard to think about using in an organizational change context, but like Jacek did with the
customer experience initiative (p. 170-175) how can you reduce the up-front costs? Can you provide test drives,
rental, samples, or similar approaches to make it easier for people to experience something themselves (p. 151)?

Rather than waiting for people to come to you, can you drive discovery (p. 158-161)? Like the Acura experience,
encouraging people who didn’t know they might be interested to check it out?

Can you reduce friction on the back end by making things reversible (p. 162)? Like Street Tails Animal Rescue and
others have done using trial periods or other approaches?

Given your analysis above, list three ways you could catalyze change by alleviating uncertainty.

1.

2.

3.

2: The REDUCE Framework: Alleviate Uncertainty 6

Reduce Reactance

Is reactance already happening? What are people reacting against?

How can you allow for agency (p. 27)? Like the Truth campaign, encourage people to chart their path to your destination?

Rather than trying to get people to do something, can you provide a menu (p. 30)? Like asking kids whether they want their
broccoli or chicken first, can you use guided choices?

What’s something you want people to do and how can you frame it as a question instead (p. 43-46)? What’s the right question to
ask that will encourage them to commit to the conclusion?

Like Smoking Kid (p. 39-40), is there a gap between attitudes and behavior, and if so, how can you highlight it?

Rather than going straight for influence, have you started with understanding (p. 43-46)? Have you found
the root? Like Greg Vecchi, have you built trust and used that to catalyze change?

2: The REDUCE Framework: Reduce Reactance 7

Reduce Reactance (cont.)

Given your analysis above, list three ways you could catalyze change by reducing reactance.

1.

2.

3.

2: The REDUCE Framework: Reduce Reactance 8

Shrink Distance

Start by flushing out the football field below. What are the two endzones, where are people on the field, and
what is their zone of acceptance and region of rejection (p. 94-98)?

What about your current approaches may have fallen in the region of rejection and why? How can you avoid the
confirmation bias (p. 99-103) moving forward?

Can you start by asking for less (p. 109-112)? Like the doctor who got the trucker to drink less soda, chunking the change,
and then asking for more? If you’re asking people to do something very different from what they’re used to, can you use
stepping stones to make them more comfortable?

Who might fall in the movable middle (p. 104) and how can you use them to help convince others?

What would be a good unsticking point and how can you use it to switch the field (p. 114)? Like deep
canvassing, can you find a dimension of common ground and use it to bring people closer?

2: The REDUCE Framework: Shrink Distance 9

Shrink Distance (cont.)

Given your analysis above, list three ways you could catalyze change by reducing reactance.

1.

2.

3.

2: The REDUCE Framework: Shrink Distance 10

Find Corroborating Evidence

Are you dealing with a pebble or a boulder (p. 179)? How expensive, risky, time-consuming, or controversial is
the change you’re requesting?

How can you provide more proof? Like interventionists, by making sure people hear from multiple sources
saying similar things (p. 186)?

What similar but independent sources can you call on to help provide more evidence (p.194-195)?

How can you concentrate those sources close in time (p. 195-198)? Making sure people hear from multiple
others in a short period?

For larger-scale change, should you use a fire hose or a sprinkler (p. 200)? Concentrate scarce resources or spread
them out?

Given your analysis above, list three ways you could catalyze change by finding corroborating evidence.

1.

2.

3.

2: The REDUCE Framework: Find Corroborating Evidence 11

3 Catalyzing the Change
Now that you’ve analyzed the barriers preventing change based on the REDUCE framework, it’s time to
consider implementation. Based on the work you did over the last few pages, do you want to update how
important different barriers are to your situation?

Roadblock Score (1-5)

Reactance

Endowment

Distance

Uncertainty

Corroborating
Evidence

Using the ideas generated on the previous pages, which 3-5 do you think make the most sense to pursue
and why? Which ones can be executed relatively quickly, and which require a more long-term horizon?

Here’s a hint: Think back to the ideas you wrote down at the bottom of each of the pages in the previous
section. That should jump start the thinking process.

Directions to Pursue Now Directions to Pursue Later

3: Catalyzing the Change 12

Now that you know your priorities, how will you implement them? What resources do you need to gather?
What people do you need to partner with?

How can you begin to test these approaches out to see if they work?

For directions that require more of a long-term horizon, what things do you need to gather to be able to
implement them down the road?

3: Catalyzing the Change 13

Thanks for downloading this application guide.
If you know someone else who might find these
ideas valuable, please pass it along.

Contact Jonah Berger

www.JonahBerger.com
jberger@wharton.upenn.edu